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EDITOR'S NOTE: Sarah McConnell's name was incorrect in the original version of this story. The story below is correct.

FAIRBANKS — Every Monday night, Lottie Lekanoff Roll and her extended family meet at her 83-year-old father’s home in Unalaska for a potluck dinner.

After an intensive week studying nutrition in Fairbanks with the Troth Yeddha’ Nutrition Program, Roll said the meal at the weekly family get-together is in line for some healthy renovations.

“There will be a change in the food,” she stated emphatically Friday morning as 11 participants in the program discussed how the program’s curriculum has changed their attitudes about eating.

“I’m going to be the hardest one to break,” added Roll, a community health aide and EMS volunteer. “I usually have a candy bar every day.”

Like Roll, the program participants hold a wide range of jobs in their rural communities — Head Start educator, family services coordinator, elders nutrition coordinator. And all were returning to their communities throughout the Interior and Aleutians to share their newfound knowledge with others.

The weeklong practicum came about as part of an effort to stem the rising tide of obesity and related health problems in Alaska, explained Sarah McConnell, program manager of the inaugural Rural Nutrition Leadership Academy at the Interior-Aleutians campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

In addition, the program focused on the impact of rising food and fuel costs and waning subsistence resources in some rural areas.

Throughout the week, students not only learned about nutrition but cooked almost all their meals and prepared healthy snacks that were enjoyed throughout the course.

A teaching team — consisting of a licensed registered dietitian, clinical social worker, Alaska Native elder and a wide range of guest speakers — shared both modern and traditional methods, skills and knowledge.

In addition to learning about the nutritional values of vitamins, water and minerals, participants also had fun playing nutrition games, exercising and sharing with each other.

On Friday, Marjorie Attla spoke to the women about her traditional upbringing in Allakaket. Her two grandmothers — one Athabascan and the other Inupiat — were her primary teachers, both of language and subsistence living including gathering traditional herbs and vegetables, and helping with a summer garden.

“They gave us what they knew,” Attla said. “They were real good teachers.”

“We picked two kinds of tea, white potatoes, onions, rhubarb and mushrooms in addition to all kinds of berries,” Attla said, “blueberries, salmonberries, high- and lowbush cranberries, blackberries and bear berries.

“When we went out, we didn’t pick no half gallon. My brother had a can and I had a can,” she said, explaining that a 5-gallon gas can was attached to a harness and would be worn on the picker’s back.

The berries were stored in gunny sacks, and Attla recalled picking tall white grass and dry moss that was put in the center of the bags to keep them through the winter.

“Everything we picked lasted pretty much all winter,” Attla said.

Winter food harvesting included hunting and catching, cutting and drying fish that was cached for winter use.

Cecil Sanford, a tribal family social worker from Mentasta, shared the traditional way of preserving blueberries in the ground, a technique described to her by both her grandmothers, Katie John of Mentasta and Janie Sanford of Beaver Creek.

First, a hole is dug in the ground and lined with moss, leaves and the rendered fat of mountain squirrels. Then a birch bark basket full of blueberries is placed in the hole and covered with more squirrel fat, leaves and moss. A stick is placed atop the covered pile to mark the location of the basket through winter snows.

The Athabascan name of the program — Troth Yeddha’ — is related to UAF in that the hill it is situated on was once a potato-picking gathering place for Interior Natives.

“We wanted to follow the tradition that the (late) Chief Peter John and Howard Luke described,” McConnell explained. “People came together for the food source and they learned from each other and shared solutions and went back to their villages. Now it’s very fitting to bring people areas together to not only learn about nutrition but to learn from each other and figure out solutions to health problems they see facing their communities today.”

Troth Yeddha’ is supported by a $1 million, three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Services’ National Research Initiative. Additional courses will be offered during the spring semester.

All the program participants will be earning college credits at the end of the semester. Each week they are engaged with followup audio conferences with the instructors that will help them spread their lessons into their communities with an assigned 40-hour community outreach project.

Some of the participants will work with preschool- and school-aged children and others with elders and community leaders to share and implement what they have learned.

In addition to Unalaska and Mentasta, students hailed from King Cove, Tanana, Allakaket, Nenana, Eagle and Chistochina.

At the end of her storytelling, Attla gave the women, each of whom lives a very busy life, some advice.

“I remember my grandmothers always said, ‘Take time for yourself.’”

For more information on the program, call McConnell at (907) 474-6080.